Boys Scouts to Admit Gay Kids

Michael Sean Winters
|
May. 24, 2013
Distinctly Catholic

In the Washington Post,[1] Michelle Boorstein has a round up of reaction among religious leaders to the Boy Scouts' decision to end its ban on gay youngsters joining the group. The key sentence in the statement from the Boy Scouts' organization is this: "While people have different opinions about this policy, we can all agree that kids are better off when they are in Scouting." This focus on what is good for the child should also invite Catholic Church leaders to think again about their policy of refusing to place children in an adoptive home if the parents adopting the child are gay. In the meantime, it is happy to see that Rev. William Byrne, secretary for pastoral ministry for the Archdiocese of Washington told Boorstein that "the new policy is not in conflict with Church teaching."